User engagement with political “facts” in the context of the fake news phenomenon. An exploration of information behaviour
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-11-2018-0180 |
| Published date | 09 September 2019 |
| Pages | 1082-1099 |
| Date | 09 September 2019 |
| Author | Rita Marcella,Graeme Baxter,Agnieszka Walicka |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
User engagement with
political “facts”in the context
of the fake news phenomenon
An exploration of information behaviour
Rita Marcella and Graeme Baxter
School of Creative and Cultural Business,
Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK, and
Agnieszka Walicka
Aberdeenshire Libraries, Oldmeldrum, UK
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study that explored human behaviour in
response to political “facts”presented online by political parties in Scotland.
Design/methodology/approach –The study consisted of interactive online interviews with 23 citizens in
North-East Scotland, in the run-up to the 2017 UK General Election.
Findings –Participants demonstrated cognitive and critical responses to facts but little affective reaction.
They judged facts swiftly and largely intuitively, providing evidence that facts are frequently consumed,
accepted or rejectedwithout further verification processes.Users demonstrated varying levels of engagement
with theinformation they consume,and subject knowledge may influencethe extent to which respondentstrust
facts, in previouslyunanticipated ways.Users tended to notice facts with which theydisagreed and, in terms of
prominence, particularly noted and respondedto facts which painted extremely negative or positive pictures.
Most acknowledgedlimitations in capacity to interrogate facts, but some weredelusionally confident.
Originality/value –Relatively little empirical research has been conducted exploring the perceived
credibility of political or government information online. It is believed that this and a companion study are the
first to have specifically investigated the Scottish political arena. This paper presents a new, exploratory fact
interrogation model, alongside an expanded information quality awareness model.
Keywords Scotland, Information behaviour, Credibility, Political parties, Fake news
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In the last two years the world has woken up to the extent to which fake news and flawed
facts may be influencing the political decision-making process. This paper aims to
contribute to knowledge of human behaviour in response to the presentation of facts, in
order to understand how and at what points users typically draw upon classic information
tools and strategies to assist in the process of engaging with “facts”, as well as elucidating
the barriers that exist to users doing so. In a world where disputed facts and fake news form
part of daily discourse in the public sphere, the research is considered to be highly timely.
The research was designed to:
(1) build understanding of cognitive, affective and critical response to apparent facts;
(2) investigate typical approaches to testing the “facts”; and
(3) draw conclusions and develop theory as to user capacity to recognise, test and use facts.
This paper describes the second stage of a project which took place during the 2017 election
in the UK, where the first component of the research took the form of an online survey that
sought data around user response to a set of posts which contained apparent facts which
has been published separately (see Baxter et al., 2019). The second stage took the form of a
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 75 No. 5, 2019
pp. 1082-1099
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-11-2018-0180
Received 5 November 2018
Revised 19 February 2019
Accepted 24 February 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
1082
JD
75,5
set of 23 interviews exploring engagement with allegedly factual political statements.
The population interviewed consisted predominantly of older, well-educated individuals
and future research will widen these parameters to explore the experience of other
societal groups.
The current research is exploratory but built upon a constructivist understanding of the
world of information and knowledge that has accrued over several decades around human
information behaviour. The research takes an unabashedly information science perspective
on the research problem but has been influenced by research in politics, political
communication and epistemology, in recognition of the extent to which the post-truth
politics and fake news themes have been adopted in a wide range of disciplinary contexts.
However, the authors ultimately believe that the topic is one to which information and
library science has a very great deal to offer.
Literature review
The authors (Baxter et al., 2019) recently reviewed the full literature around facts,
information and politics in a companion paper. The current paper therefore focuses on how
facts might be evaluated. To begin, the authors explored two definitions to underpin their
understanding of a fact.
The epistemological explanation of a fact is rooted in an acknowledgement of the
complexity of how we know things: “Three popular views about the nature of facts can be
distinguished: A fact is just a true truth-bearer; A fact is just an obtaining state of affairs;
A fact is just a sui generis type of entity in which objects exemplify properties or stand in
relations”(Mulligan and Correia, 2017). This definition emphasises that the fact in itself is
not fixed, but is rather contended and capable of variable understandings.
an event so described that any observerwill agree to the description. There are,of course, no
facts that meet thistoo general requirement. We are satisfied –we have establishedour fact –
if any observer within the circle of persons with whom we discuss events will agree.”This
latter explanation, while acknowledging that all facts can be contended, is more helpful from
an information science perspectivein that it acknowledges that, while there might be dubiety
about whether anything might universallybe regarded as a fact, there are ways in which we
can rationally and analytically explore the extent to which a fact might be deemed to be
verifiably a fact, in particular through confirmation of user response with that of others.
And how would we as information scientists describe our understanding of a fact? The
authors wouldsuggest that we would go further than Guthrie inour belief that the quality of
informational material is capable of being tested, confirmed, contextualised, modified or
rejected.Indeed for many in the professionsassociated with information science,at the heart of
their vocationrests a belief in and commitment to information quality as a concept. We would
also recognisethe authority of the creatoror publisher of a fact as significant to its reliability.
Fritch and Cromwell draw on Wilson’s (1983) definition of cognitive authority: “cognitive
authority is influence on one’s thoughts that one would consciously recognize as proper.”He
further clarifies the meaning of cognitive authority by stating that cognitive authority is
related to credibility, and that credibility has two main components: competence and
trustworthiness. Wilson eventually links the cognitive authority of a work directly to the
cognitive authority of its author(s) (Fritch and Cromwell, 2001, p. 499). Interestingly,
Wilson (1983, p. 34) noted that “the different bases for judging cognitive authority are all
accident-prone, highly fallible guides, but we cannot do without them”.
Metzger (2007, p. 2078) defines information credibility as “the believability of some
information and/or its source”, citing Hovland et al. (1953). Rieh (2002, p. 3) sets out the
following operational definitions that relate to two characteristics of quality as it relates
to a fact: “information quality is identified as the extent to which users think that the
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